Rude, So Rude

Rude, so  rude. As an unhinged malignancy that has come
to set the table, well in advance of the beautiful girl
who has pledged herself to the great Monsieur.

But then, art is “subjective.” No science
of gray weapons and their variegations under the sun
-- the clouds of electricity we decorate with
though no one can name the place they came from

**
So he was quiet on his way,
knowing none could save him from the great 
similitude.
There were heaps of broken dentures,
spy cams, and heart valves, the skulls of broken dolls
littering the roadside, their undinal, rosy features
like sleep masks sculpted to hide a grimace of pain

**
His mind clouded, his beliefs unsure.
He wore a blue coat, and rain suffused his every pore .
having come from the country where trees bloomed
in his chest, to a tawdry city that was no one’s home
because it seemed so obvious there was nothing else.





And there on the path, where their gazes diverged, she was staring down
at something heavy and dense, as he gazed at 
a small cloud, shaped like an asterisk.
Around them was the detritus of an abominable city.
He felt her leave before he saw her first step
the ruins piled around her as silence around sleep.


We turn to history as if we have no past
The showers of May rain move in sheets though the valley
like a  great acrostic that spells out pain. 
There the truth is like enmity:
a blue that coalesces in the mist, with shades of cerulean,
maroon and cobalt. The sky moving sideways overhead, 
he stares at the structures his vision inhabits



 
 

 

— David Hickman